Health and Medicine

The link between climate and cholera, a serious health problem in many parts of the world, has become stronger in recent decades, according to a University of Michigan scientist who takes an ecological approach to understanding disease patterns. Mercedes Pascual, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, discussed her work during a symposium Feb. 17 on the ecology of infectious diseases at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In wo

Scientists work toward unraveling gene expression in the brain

Using Web-based tools they developed to sift through reams of data, scientists from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins hope to unravel the genetics of neurological problems associated with Down syndrome, autism and lead poisoning.

Their search starts with microarrays, or so-called “gene chips,” which measure the activity of tens of thousands of genes all at once. By analyzing the pattern of gene acti

UH Researchers Focus On Diagnosing Eye Disease Using Adaptive Optics

A new optics technology is providing scientists with real-time microscopic images of the living retina, and may allow doctors to focus in on earlier diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as diabetes and glaucoma.

University of Houston researchers are using a technology called adaptive optics to peer inside the eyes of human subjects and for the first time get clear, sharp images of features such as bloo

Results reported in Nature Medicine

Opening up the possibility of a new approach to the treatment of diabetes, researchers have shown in animal studies that a drug long available in Europe can simultaneously block three of the major biochemical pathways responsible for the blood-vessel damage that causes serious diabetic complications.

Dr. Michael Brownlee of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine was the senior researcher for the international consortium that carried out t

The fact that infections among adults can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes is now well established by several hundred scientific studies. Both heart attacks and strokes are expressions of arteriosclerosis (thickening of the arteries, previously termed hardening of the arteries). New research from the Section for Pediatric Cardiology in Lund indicates that infections can also contribute to the early development of arteriosclerosis even in childhood.

Doctor Petru Liuba shows in a

A research letter in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggests that the pain-killer ibuprofen could diminish the well-known beneficial effects of aspirin on preventing cardiovascular disease. Aspirin makes platelets (blood-clotting cells) less ’sticky’ which is associated with fewer thromboses (clots). Aspirin therefore reduces the chance of heart attacks caused by coronary thrombosis and stroke (cerebral thrombosis). Previous laboratory research has suggested that ibuprofen in